Program order during a slow cut

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi coaches.

First, a brief thanks specifically Dr. Baraki for his message regarding back pain. I tweaked my back yesterday on a round and sloppy last rep of a set of 5 deadlifts I shouldn’t have attempted, and instead of going straight to the bed/couch and spending the next few days waiting the pain out, I kept moving and did some high volume, light lower back work last night. Pain is so much better today than it was the day after I tweaked it a previous time - getting out of bed was even tolerable. Planning to go back to the gym tonight and do slightly higher-weight pulls with high volume again. At this rate, I’ll be back to business as usual in the gym within the week. Thanks to your work, I’m not panicking, I’m functioning 95% normally today, and I’m not debating going back to bro workouts as I would have been in the past. Thanks so much - that’s a real empowerment.

Question portion of post:

Brief stats: Male, 30, Height 5’7", Waist 39-40, approx. 200 pounds. Current proven maxes: 385 HBS (working on low bar - prone to shoulder distress), 315 B, 202.5 P, 430 D. I’ve been grinding out HLM since September '17.

Question:
A few weeks ago, I asked a question about doing the Bridge as a mid-intermediate rather than early-intermediate who is also a newcomer to RPE, and Coach Lutz confirmed that this is a sound plan. I had decided to start The Bridge on 3/1, but in light of what happened with my back, I see no logical reason to keep killing myself for another month and will begin a new auto-regulated program on 2/12.

I’d also like to slowly lose 20 or so pounds over the next 22 weeks while gaining strength or maintaining as much of it as possible - at my height, for my level of advancement, 175-180 is probably a healthier weight at which I can still be strong. For those looking to do your programming in a calorie maintenance/deficit state for an extended period, is there a particular order you’d structure programming in? I was considering:

  • The Bridge (8 weeks)
  • TBD (7 weeks)
  • GPP Bias (7 weeks)

Do you have any suggestions as to what programs and in what order would best help me get where I want to be while minimizing or hopefully avoiding strength loss? I am assuming that my weight loss timeline and amount is reasonable, but if there is a flaw there, I’m also highly receptive and open to any suggestions.

Thanks,
Scott

2

Hope your back is back to normal by now!

Is there a specific reason for your 22 week deadline?

Your suggested order is fine, and you could run the Bridge 2.0 or the HLM template in your “TBD” slot (3-day programs), whereas the 12 week strength template would need to be truncated and/or modified to fit in that slot, since it’s a 4-day program.

3

Thanks for the response.

Back is 95% and continuing to improve while I ramp back up - made it to the 200s S/D last night and will cautiously test 300s tomorrow. If all goes well, Mon. will be business as usual.

The 22-week timeline happens to correspond with a summer beach vacation, and it works out nicely to about 1 pound/week. BBM also happened to have a lot of 7-week plans, such that 2 of them combined with The Bridge would have my programming mapped out for the duration of a 22-week cut. If any of those reasons or my cutting plan itself seem unreasonable, I’m highly open to advice.

Re: HLM, thanks - I didn’t realize the HLM template would fit into a 7-week slot. I’m already quite familiar with HLM, so that sounds like a great fit for me.

Thanks again for the help and content.

Scott